


Prompt #10: "I'm sorry for your loss."

by Xylianna



Series: Xy's 100 Ways Challenge [31]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Character Death, Gen, mention of gladnis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 10:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xylianna/pseuds/Xylianna
Summary: He had to get outside and find the guys. They should experience the Dawn together.





	Prompt #10: "I'm sorry for your loss."

Noctis collapsed to the floor of his father’s - _his_ \- throne room, scarcely able to believe he was truly alive. Through the windows, he could discern daylight driving away the dark that had plagued Eos for the last decade and a slow grin stretched his lips wide.

He had to get outside and find the guys. They should experience the Dawn together.

Running, he nimbly leaped over debris, unwilling to allow anything to slow his progress. Bursting out the front doors of the Citadel, he looked around. When he’d left them, his friends had been right here, the last bastion against a swarming daemon horde, fighting to give Noctis the time he needed to defeat Ardyn and banish the Scourge for good.

He jogged forward and began to move in a tight perimeter, sure they couldn’t have gone far. Cerulean eyes scanned all around, and his inattentiveness on the ground caused him to trip, falling hard enough that the breath was expelled from his lungs from the force of it.

Noctis’s inhalation froze in his throat, for he had tripped over Prompto’s mangled body.

“No…” he whispered, shaking his head. Frantically, Noctis turned his head, seeking, and it didn’t take him long to locate the similarly burned and broken corpses of Ignis and Gladio: together in death as they had been in life.

“What… _no_ ,” Noctis said again in disbelief. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. He _won_ , damn it! 

Throwing back his head, he screamed at the lightening sky, at the heavens, at what remained of The Six. It was _he_ who was fated to die, not his friends… his brothers. Was this some cosmic price? Cosmic joke, more like. Hell, he’d have to track down Iris and give her the news. 

But for now, he was gonna take a moment, here alone in the ruined courtyard. Noctis felt the tears cleaving pathways through the dirt on his cheeks. He shouted again, a heartbroken, helpless cry into the Dawn. It was only after his own howl faded away, that he heard the footsteps.

Jumping to his feet, Noctis summoned fire to his hands. But he saw no daemons - only Cor, and women and men garbed in Kingsglaive uniforms.

“Your Majesty,” Cor said gravely, bowing. The ‘Glaive mimicked the motion, and Noctis felt sick. No one should bow to him; he couldn’t even save his friends. 

“Is it over?” Those piercing blue eyes demanded answers, and Noctis took a grounding breath, letting a kingly mien settle over him like the cloak of his raiment.

“It is,” Noctis spoke softly. “Ardyn and the Scourge are gone.”

Thankfully, Cor had already scanned his surroundings, saving Noctis from having to say the rest out loud. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said gruffly, and unless Noctis was imagining it, that brusque attitude was the product of holding back the tears Noctis saw glistening in the Marshall’s gaze.

His own throat tight again, Noctis nodded. Even if he could force out words, what was there to say? Others had lost far more than he. Wasn’t it selfish to focus on his own suffering when he had so much work to do?

Noctis breathed in, remembering his father, and Luna, and Gladio, and Prompto, and Ignis. He breathed out, cordoning off his mournful feelings until there was time to sink into them.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Report,” he said to Cor, inordinately grateful when the older man immediately began rattling off facts and figures, allowing Noctis to just stand there and listen.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY, OKAY. I couldn't sleep and I started thinking about the debate - do the bros survive the last battle or not? And my brain helpfully chimed in "what if Noct lived, and everyone else died instead?"
> 
> Thanks for reading, and for any kudos/comments you feel moved to leave. <3


End file.
